Learning to Skate
Many of the images used here are of inline hockey players, these will be replaced with ice hockey ones in the next few months.
Posture
Posture is important in any form of athletics and in ice hockey refers to the general body position of the skater. The stomach should be comfortably drawn in and the chest held high. Always bend your knees! You should feel that your knees are centred over the balls of your feet. You can make sure that your knees are bent by letting your ankles lean forward against the tongue of your skates. Use this as a reminder every once in a while to check your knee bend.
Forward Skating
From the starting position, stride forward with your left skate, at the same time giving a push with your right skate. Centre yourself over your left leg as you begin to bring your right leg forward. As you bring your right leg forward, you should be getting ready to give a push with your left skate. Now, push with your left skate and stride forward onto your right leg. Centre yourself over your right leg while maintaining a good knee bend. Now, give a good push with your right skate as you prepare to stride with your left. This cycle of pushing, striding, centering, and bringing the rear leg forward while preparing to push off with the other skate repeats itself again and again. You are now skating forward!
Long strides result in faster/easier skating
The Sqwizzle
This seemingly simple manoeuvre is actually a foundation exercise that will improve all aspects of your skating. Practising the swizzle helps you to feel your inside edges, works on your knee bend, stretches and strengthens your groin and inner thighs and improves your balance. Start with your knees bent and your skates in the V position. Push with both inside edges of your wheels until your feet come to about shoulder-width apart. Point your toes inward in order to pull your skates back together. Now, with your knees still bent, point your toes out, and push with your inside edges in order to repeat the swizzle. Repeat this as many times as you can!
Swizzles are a great way to develop strength in your skating
Backward Swizzles
Before you try this backward swizzle, make sure you have mastered the forward swizzle. Because this exercise requires you to have a strong ‘skating muscle’ strength. The backward swizzle is the best introduction to skating backwards. It is the exactly same motion as the forward swizzle. The only difference is that you execute the swizzle backwards. Start with knees bent and your toes pointed inward. Push (backwards) with the inside edges of both skates, bringing them to about shoulder-width apart. Feel that you need more strength compared to the forward swizzle? Point your heels inward, and pull your skates back together. Do this as many times as you can!
One Foot Swizzles (forward C-cuts)
Do this exercise with both blades in contact with the ice. Instead of pushing with both skates at the same time, push with one skate while holding the other in a straight line. Think of your inside edges “carving” the letter “C” in the ice. Again, work on bending both knees at all times. This exercise will build your strength and balance, and will prepare you to execute sharp turns and crossovers.
Forward C-cuts are a good step towards learning to skate backwards.
Turning
Turning takes you to the puck quickly and it helps to avoid collisions. Therefore it is necessary to master turns. It is relatively simple technique to master (as long as you practice!). As an example, imagine that you are turning to the right. Roll your right skate forward and turn your eyes, head, upper body, and hips to the right. Keep both skates in contact with the ground. Make sure to let your hockey stick lead you around the turn and keep your knees bent.
Remember to always keep your center of balance as low as possible by bending your knees.
While executing a turn, don’t sit back on your blades. Stay centred, and keep your balance over the balls of your feet. You will soon learn to trust your edges to hold you through the turn. Feel the blade digging into the ice during a tight turn. You are now trusting both your outside and your inside edges. (On the outside edge of your leading skate, and the inside edge of your trailing skate)
Forward Crossovers
Before moving on to this exercise, practise one-foot swizzles (“C” cuts) around a circle. Once you are comfortable with it, you are ready to start this very powerful skating technique. Let’s do a right-over-left crossover. While moving counterclockwise around a circle, centre your weight over your left, inside leg. Pick your right skate and move it over your left.
Forward crossovers are a vital part of any hockey players repertoire, they allow you to gain/maintain speed while cornering.
Keep your upper body rotated to the left, and stay relaxed and centred over your left leg. Make sure that your knees are bent all the time! As you land on your right skate, push through with the outside edge of your left skate. Then bring your left skate alongside the right. Start to centre yourself over the left hip and skate again in order to execute another crossover.
Backward Skating
The ability to move in any direction while skating backwards will improve your hockey dramatically, especially in defensive situations. Start by standing with your left skate and your eyes and head looking back over your left shoulder. Bend your knees and point the heel of your right skate out, in preparation for a good inside edge push. This is basically backward “C” cuts. As you push with your right skate to begin to trace the letter “C”, stay centred over your left, inside leg. Keep looking over your left shoulder.
C-Cuts are one of the most stable methods of skating backwards. The more difficult technique of backwards crossovers will be covered later.
Point your right heel inward (towards your left leg) to bring your right skate back alongside your left. Remain centred over your inside leg. Practice this until you are comfortable with it, then do the same exercise for your left skate. Backward skating is just that. Remember, it is not as hard as it looks. Just keep practicing!
Transitions
Front-to-Back Transition: Let’s say that you want to make a front-to-back transition while watching out for a player on your right side. Look over your right shoulder as you are skating or gliding. Start to shift your weight to your left hip. Centre yourself over your left hip as you swing your right skate and shoulder around to the right. This will cause you to pivot on your left skate. Now shift your weight to your right hip as your right skate lands on the ground. With your weight centred over your right hip, lift your left skate and plant it securely back on the ground about shoulder-width apart, make sure your knees are bent and you are skating backwards in a solid, balanced position. You should now feel ready to make a move in any direction!
A common bad habit of hockey players is to scrape the ice with their blades while conducting the transition. They are essentially doing a ‘hockey stop’ but instead of stopping fully are swivelling around into a backward direction. This is a bad habit as you lose significant amounts of speed. A smooth transition with no scraping of the ice is best.Back-to-Front Transition: As you are skating backwards, look over your right shoulder (in the direction in which you wish to move). Centre your weight over your left hip as you rotate your whole upper body and head to the right. With your weight centred over your left hip, pick up your right skate and start to swing it to the right. By now your upper body should be fully rotated to the right. Prepare to give a good push with the inside edge of your left skate. As you push with your left skate, stride forward onto your right skate. You are now ready to skate forward!
